Chemical Processing

The largest benefit to end users is the de-coupling of automation software from hardware.

Virtualization is the separation of an IT resource from specific physical hardware. This property is usually managed by a specialized software layer called a hypervisor, which provides another abstraction layer beyond that used by computer operating systems. Virtualization can be applied to servers, storage, desktops and networks and offers better security and easier system administration.
In today’s market for process automation systems, many suppliers offer products and solutions that employ virtualization. Virtualization also plays an increasingly important role in ARC Advisory Group’s evolving Collaborative Process Automation System (CPAS) vision.
Virtualization vs. Simulation vs. Emulation
In the context of virtualization, the…

Rockwell Automation and Cisco released a white paper and design and implementation guide titled, “Deploying 802.11 Wireless LAN Technology within a Converged Plantwide Ethernet Architecture.” The detailed design guidance will help control system engineers, IT network engineers, and system integrators implement standard, IP-based wireless networks in a more robust, secure and scalable way, according to Rockwell Automation.
The guide provides in-depth information on 802.11 wireless LAN (WLAN) solutions within a Converged Plantwide Ethernet (CPwE) architecture, including design considerations for fixed position, nomadic and mobile equipment use cases. It also includes explanations for how to configure, maintain and troubleshoot WLAN for…

ABB broke ground on a new 75,000-square-foot factory located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The factory will replace an existing 65,000-square-foot facility currently located in the area and will manufacture ABB’s KTEK line of industrial level measurement devices used in industries including, oil & gas, chemicals, pulp & paper, power, municipal water and mining. The products will be shipped and supported globally from the new facility. Completion is slated for late 2015. KTEK was acquired by ABB in 2010.
The current factory employs 150 people. It is anticipated the new factory will require 50 additional jobs over the next five years. ABB expects to hire engineers, technicians and skilled professionals involved in industrial…

PAS expands its executive advisory board.

PAS Inc., provider of process safety, cybersecurity and asset reliability for the energy, power and process industries, expands its executive advisory board. In addition to PAS’ senior advisor Larry Evans, the board now includes Mary Cotton, CEO at iDirect Technologies; Jim Porter, president and founder of Sustainable Operations Solutions and former chief engineer at DuPont; and Joel Rosen, executive vice president of product and marketing at Endurance International Group.
For more information, please visit: www.pas.com

ABB broke ground on a new 75,000-square-foot factory located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The factory will replace an existing 65,000-square-foot facility currently located in the area and will manufacture ABB’s KTEK line of industrial level measurement devices used in industries including, oil & gas, chemicals, pulp & paper, power, municipal water and mining. The products will be shipped and supported globally from the new facility. Completion is slated for late 2015. KTEK was acquired by ABB in 2010.
The current factory employs 150 people. It is anticipated the new factory will require 50 additional jobs over the next five years. ABB expects to hire engineers, technicians and skilled professionals involved in industrial…

Recent

Essential information is needed to keep a project from going off track.

This Month’s Puzzler
My company has received an order to build a skid to make a mixed gel, an intermediate for a personal care product. The skid will include an agitated batch reactor where a powder is added to produce the viscous gel. This is…

Recent

Carefully consider how to deal with low flow rates on level control

A wastewater plant needed to reduce its emissions of volatile organic compounds. Troubleshooting identified excess light hydrocarbons in the water as the culprit. The water came from a common wastewater collection header shared by two distillation…

Essential information is needed to keep a project from going off track.

This Month’s Puzzler
My company has received an order to build a skid to make a mixed gel, an intermediate for a personal care product. The skid will include an agitated batch reactor where a powder is added to produce the viscous gel. This is…

Atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP), a technique now widely used by industry, may gain significant benefits from a metal-free photocatalyst, believe its developers at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), and the Dow Chemical…

One option to infer internal flow rate in a column rarely makes sense

Some processes reward close control of liquid and vapor rates inside distillation columns. Conventional control approaches use a variation of flow metering based on either imposing a pressure drop inside the tower or drawing the stream out of the…

Recent

Essential information is needed to keep a project from going off track.

This Month’s Puzzler
My company has received an order to build a skid to make a mixed gel, an intermediate for a personal care product. The skid will include an agitated batch reactor where a powder is added to produce the viscous gel. This is…

The Electrical Apparatus Service Association (EASA) announced the EASA Accreditation Program for accreditation of electric motor repair service providers.

The Electrical Apparatus Service Association (EASA) announced the EASA Accreditation Program for accreditation of electric motor repair service providers. The program provides assurance to electric motor end-users that repairs performed at accredited facilities conform to industry standards and maintain the reliability and efficiency of the repaired motor. These standards are contained in the American National Standards Institute approved ANSI/EASA AR100: Recommended Practice for the Repair of Rotating Electrical Equipment.
The EASA Accreditation Program includes over 70 separate criteria relating to electric motor repair. These criteria address the initial condition assessment of the failed motor and the repair of the motor’s…

Better integration of data and more powerful software enhance efforts.

Chemical manufacturers are able to collect a wealth of production data but effectively using those data to improve reliability remains a challenge for many firms. However, some operating companies such as Salalah Methanol Company (SMC), Honeywell…

Eric Brown’s oft-quoted lament “Manufacturers are drowning in data but starving for information” catches the essence of what we desired to fix in Dow. Dow Chemical, Midland, Mich., which produces more than 5,000 products at 188 sites in 36…

Focus on a number of factors that cause problems on projects

The last round of major project expansions made clear to many of us that engineering quality now is a significant issue. Whether due to poor project definition from the owners, miscommunication between owners and contractors, or less experienced…

A process that modifies hydrophobic particles to disperse easily in water and hydrophilic particles to dissolve in oil could lead to more environmentally friendly paints and other oil-based applications, says a team of researchers at the University…

Carefully consider how to deal with low flow rates on level control

A wastewater plant needed to reduce its emissions of volatile organic compounds. Troubleshooting identified excess light hydrocarbons in the water as the culprit. The water came from a common wastewater collection header shared by two distillation…

Recent

Document provides insight into enforcement of new labeling standards for mixtures.

On Feb. 9, 2015, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published the Enforcement Guidance for the Hazard Communication Standard (HCS) effective June 1, 2015. The Guidance offers important insights into OSHA’s HCS…

Recent

PAS expands its executive advisory board.

PAS Inc., provider of process safety, cybersecurity and asset reliability for the energy, power and process industries, expands its executive advisory board. In addition to PAS’ senior advisor Larry Evans, the board now includes Mary Cotton, CEO at iDirect Technologies; Jim Porter, president and founder of Sustainable Operations Solutions and former chief engineer at DuPont; and Joel Rosen, executive vice president of product and marketing at Endurance International Group.
For more information, please visit: www.pas.com

New research aims to better understand and mitigate threats from hackers or malware.

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the U.K.’s main agency for funding research in engineering and physical sciences, and the U.K.’s National Cyber Security Program are to jointly invest £2.5 million ($4 million) to help recognize and reduce cyber-attack threats to the nation’s critical infrastructure. (For more about cyber security, see “Defeat Targeted Cyber Attacks.”)The new research will particularly focus on the U.K.’s vital industrial control systems that run manufacturing plants, power stations, the electricity grid, and the rail network. The idea is to help better understand and mitigate threats from hackers or malware infiltrating the systems behind the infrastructure.The funds are to be…

Recent

A variety of techniques can preclude fire and explosion hazards

Many chemical makers use flammable and combustible liquids and, thus, face a serious risk of a fire or explosion during the handling, processing and storage of these liquids. If containment is lost, then, depending upon the quantity released, local…

Agency wants to modernize process safety management regulations

On December 1, 2014, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) announced that its “Most Wanted Safety Improvement” is to modernize U.S. process safety management (PSM) regulations. Specifically, the CSB notes implementation of key federal and state…

Document provides insight into enforcement of new labeling standards for mixtures.

On Feb. 9, 2015, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published the Enforcement Guidance for the Hazard Communication Standard (HCS) effective June 1, 2015. The Guidance offers important insights into OSHA’s HCS…

A research abstract available from J.T. Gabrielsen Consulting provides estimates of the energy cost savings advantage per sale dollar for U.S. chemical product manufacturers compared to Europe and Asia-Pacific for the four major energy types: electricity, natural gas, oil and coal.

A research abstract available from J.T. Gabrielsen Consulting provides estimates of the energy cost savings advantage per sale dollar for U.S. chemical product manufacturers compared to Europe and Asia-Pacific for the four major energy types: electricity, natural gas, oil and coal. Of the 21 U.S. manufacturing sectors, the chemical product sector has the second highest total energy consumption per year in both BTUs and dollars, the sixth highest energy cost per dollar of sales and the fourth highest U.S. competitive energy cost advantage, according to the report.
The report chronicles the last 10 years of industrial price changes for oil, natural gas, electricity and coal for the U.S., Europe and Asia-Pacific, including the price spreads…

A research abstract available from J.T. Gabrielsen Consulting provides estimates of the energy cost savings advantage per sale dollar for U.S. chemical product manufacturers compared to Europe and Asia-Pacific for the four major energy types: electricity, natural gas, oil and coal.

A research abstract available from J.T. Gabrielsen Consulting provides estimates of the energy cost savings advantage per sale dollar for U.S. chemical product manufacturers compared to Europe and Asia-Pacific for the four major energy types: electricity, natural gas, oil and coal. Of the 21 U.S. manufacturing sectors, the chemical product sector has the second highest total energy consumption per year in both BTUs and dollars, the sixth highest energy cost per dollar of sales and the fourth highest U.S. competitive energy cost advantage, according to the report.
The report chronicles the last 10 years of industrial price changes for oil, natural gas, electricity and coal for the U.S., Europe and Asia-Pacific, including the price spreads…

Inert buildup increases head pressure leading to higher energy consumption

Several years ago, plant managers at a large petrochemical plant in Louisiana asked me to look at a complex refrigeration system experiencing an ever-increasing power demand with almost no change in the system’s process cooling load requirements. This was very baffling because operations had tried everything possible — compressor maintenance, heat-exchanger tube cleaning, etc. After spending some time with the plant’s operations and maintenance staff and doing a system walk-through, I had some ideas and needed to do some additional due diligence to confirm them. A quick data analysis and sampling of refrigerant at a few critical points in the system revealed non-condensables as the culprit. As the name implies, non-condensables…

Recent

Sunday, March 22 is World Water Day.

The United Nations designates “water and sustainable development” as the theme for today’s World Water Day, with a particular focus on industry and the water-energy-food nexus. Dow Water & Process Solutions offers an infographic, “Meeting the Water-Energy-Food Nexus Together,” which illustrates how Dow is addressing water demands with its water and processing technologies. According to the United Nations, says Dow, by 2030 we will need 30% more water, 40% more energy and 50% more food.
View the infographic here.

Process improvements such as high-yield catalysts, equipment advances, better design and process control changes can result in substantial energy savings. However, it’s not always necessary to look for complex process changes to save energy. Simple modifications to operations also can complement energy optimization efforts, resulting in significant energy savings. Here are some examples.Plants often use equipment designed to operate only during abnormal operations in normal situations. Operating a burner over 40–50% excess air level, instead of the optimum 10–20% level is one such example. Opportunities similar to this exist in plants that run multi-stage processes. In petroleum refineries and petrochemical plants, the product of one…

Buildup can prompt erratic performance of distillation columns.

Keeping a chemical process running smoothly is one of the top priorities of plant management and operations. Process upsets and unplanned shutdowns interrupt production, lead to additional maintenance and extra costs, and generally cause headaches for everyone involved. As a result, a unit operation that experiences repeated upsets culminating in its shutdown and curtailed product output quickly becomes the focus of attention for plant personnel. This was the case in a cellulosics production unit at Dow's Midland, Mich., site — a steam stripper for removal of low levels of methanol and other lights from a process wastewater stream was suffering sudden unexplained pressure drop and level fluctuations that required shutdowns and restarts to resolve the tower's erratic performance.

Production Tower Schematic

Dow had selected steam stripping because it's a proven technology to remove methanol from wastewater, which reduces organic load on a treatment facility. The cellulosics production unit's tower has a rectifying section to concentrate the stripped methanol and other strippable organics, to lower the cost of incinerating the recovered methanol or possibly allow its use or sale as a byproduct. This turned the steam stripper into a full fractional distillation column.

Wastewater distillation takes place in a 5-ft-diameter tower running slightly above atmospheric pressure with a total of 26 dualflow trays on a 24-in tray spacing and 28 ft of 40-mm ring-type random packing in a single bed (Figure 1). Twenty four of the dualflow trays are located below the wastewater feed point, with two trays immediately above the feed, and the packed bed above those two trays. Dualflow trays were selected for the stripping section for fouling resistance to potential solids and heavies in the wastewater feed, and the two trays above the feed were intended to handle any potential fouling due to entrainment from the feed section before the vapor enters the packed section. Heat comes from direct injection of 25-psig steam into the bottom of the tower to avoid any fouling issues with a reboiler.

Typical Run Chart

A key tower design factor was the dilute nature of the contaminants in the wastewater feed stream. Methanol concentration averages about 2,000 ppm (mass) and ranges from 1,000 ppm to 2,500 ppm; the stream also includes about 200 ppm of other organics lighter than methanol and about 7,000 ppm of heavier non-strippable organics. Because the packed rectifying section would hold most of the water down in the tower, the overhead distillate would consist almost entirely of methanol and other strippable light components and its flow rate would amount to only a very small fraction of feed flow rate.

On the other hand, because methanol removal would require significant quantities of stripping steam, a substantial amount of the condensed overheads would go back into the top of the rectifying section as reflux. This would result in quite a high reflux ratio (reflux rate divided by distillate rate) and would require controlling the tower temperature profile via the low distillate rate rather than the more influential reflux rate. Moreover, regulating the tower this way would give a relatively slow control response because changes in the distillate rate would take time to affect the mass of liquid held up in the overheads system and the packed bed in the top of the tower.

Residue curve mapping is a powerful tool to better understand the design and operation of distillation columns. This article describes how to use residue curve maps to check the feasibility of separation of homogeneous mixtures and for developing the conceptual design of towers.